metsmarathon

yeah, but donkey was the first word i thought of. i guess key would've been obvious, too...

="A Boy Named Seo"]I have some Mets jerseys (how come it's not jersies?) for the same reason its not donkies... ] Main Entry: don�key Pronunciation: \ˈd�ŋ-kē, ˈdəŋ-, ˈdȯŋ-\ Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural donkeys Etymology: origin unknown Date: circa 1785 1 : the domestic ass (Equus asinus) 2 : a stupid or obstinate person

yup. and reyes is sixth!

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Jerry did make a lot of pitching changes, especially in the last few weeks. I too would be more inclined to stick with a guy who's getting outs, regardless of handedness. But Jerry was dancing through raindrops with his bullpen in September. I think he might have been better served by making fewer moves, but he opted to go the other way. It didn't work, but I do understand why he felt he had to keep his hands in there. absolutely. he played it by the book, and would've gotten killed if he didn't and still yielded the same results.

my head exploded yesterday when francessa suggested that there's some 25 guys in the league that you'd have to at least consider trading wright or reyes for. and for the life of me, i cannot think of too many perennial mvp candidates who play gold glove* caliber defense, and are young and signed to favorable long term contracts, like wright. i mean, even if i were a cold-hearted gm who didnt care about his home-grownedness, there's gotta be no more than 5 pitchers i would listen to offers to trade wright for, regardless of contract status, and prolly no more than 5 hitters. i'm not sure if there are more than 15 players i'd listen to offers for reyes for. and neither chase utley nor jimmy rollins are on either list, mike. ... oh, also, don mattingly is an abberration in that he's the only home grown yankee with no rings that the fans love. the exception, as it were, that proves the rule that yankee fans only love home grown players who deliver rings. and as he's going on and on about this, all i can think of is... other than mattingly, what really good home grown yankees never got rings, that the yankee fans would have an opportunity to hate? i mean, with 26 rings in 100 or so years, most home grown yankees, good or bad, got rings, didn't they? ... * 'gold glove' meaning plays excellent defense, not has won an award, as the best defenders do not always win the award, and bad defenders sometimes do. similar to 'mvp caliber'

this isn't a direct criticism of manuel, but moreso a criticism of major league managers in general, but one thing that manuel did that had me utterly infuriated at times, is go to his bullpen for lefty righty matchups. why does this bother me? well, listen, i understand that some pitchers are far more effective against lefties than they are against righties, and that others are far more effective against righties than they are against lefties. but i also know that some days, a pitcher just doesn't have it, and there's really no way of knowing this for certain until he faces real live batters. (if you could predict it in the bullpen, you would, and not bring in guys who would turn out to be ineffective, right!) this is true of starters and relievers alike. and i believe that the more inconsistent, the more struggling your given pitcher is, the greater variability you'll get between appearances. i do not believe this variability to exist on such a great scale between batters as it does between appearances, and likely also between innings. while i don't have stats to back this notion up, i do have anecdotal recollections which seem to reinforce my notion. so my complaint is, essentially, that when you bring in a lefty, and he does really well against the other team's left-handed batter(s), with good movement and control, you let him pitch to the righty on deck. because while the righty you have in your pen has good numbers agasinst him in general, you just don't know what you're going to get this time around. so if you've already got a guy in the game who hasn't thrown too many pitches, and is throwing well and effectively, you leave him in the game instead of rolling the dice one more time. all managers do it, and it frustrates me when you pull out an effective pitcher and gamble that the next guy will be just as effective. also, if your lefties never face right handed batters, they'll never be able to get them out when your good righty is unavailable. this is about the only thing that jerry does that bugs me, that i can recall. and all managers do it. and i'm not sure too many would do what i say, nowadays. so its fairly difficult to fault him for it. and certainly this is not a reason for why i think the mets would be better off without him. i'd love to see bobby vee back, but i really doubt it'll ever happen.

i love jerry, but i think the two year deal is the right move. i'm just not sure if his whole 'gangsta' bit is going to have any staying power, or will a full year of him as a real, and not interim, manager start to get stale in the clubhouse. 2 years is a prudent offer, imo. if he does well, and the team reacts positively next year, you can always extend him at the end of 09.

m.e.t.b.o.t. and i are ashamed to have been relatively unable to participate in the schaeffer awarding process since about may. m.e.t.b.o.t. especially, what with it being his entire reason for existence. i doubt that our collective opinions would've changed things much, but it'd be interesting to see who we'd both have as our respective top relievers. in all likliehood, we'd be right there with santana/wright. in fact, i've gotta wind that little fella up and catch us both up so we can participate in the ranking project.

church very much strikes me as a gamer, and i really hope we get a good healthy year out of him next season.

how much would it tweak the yankees to see the dispatched joe torre win the whole damned thing? that said, i think the yankee fans would like it. so i vote cubs.

brewers.

lidge over lincecum is just plain dumb. sabathia over lincecum (and webb) is also dumb, as, like santana, they were actually in the nl in april and may.

i'd be sure interested in bringing him back as a 6th starter/long man/assistant pitching coach/mascot, if the price is relatively low.

23+15+8, is my guess. i don't think blue cross blue shield will cover it...

it really is weird how much he dislikes both wright and reyes... and of course, on espn radio, michael kay was going on and on about how the mets should retain omar minaya, who's done a good job, but should axe manuel, because he didnt get them into the playoffs and that's the same standard they set for willie (!?) my head nearly exploded. manuel should be safer than omar, and reyes and wright are not a/the problem

santana and lincecum both had 4.92 runs supporting their pitching efforts this season. in 34 games started, each, santana had 28 quality starts to lincecum's 26. santana had 5 tough losses to lincecum's 2 now, where lincecum gets the nod, is in DIPS ERA and component ERA, whihc means that given neutral defense, and, i think, given typical conversion rates of hits and walks into runs against, which may either be a controllable, repeatable skill, or it might not be. lincecum also gets the nod in ERA+, 164 to 163 its really really close. i don't think johan'll get it, cos of the wins thing. objectively, i'm on a fence, i think. forced to choose, i'd say lincecum was ever so slightly better, and whether the relative pressures of new york versus san fran had any influence on their respective performance would fall outside my consideration.

'twasn't my point at all. if i have a point, i think its that i wish bp included walk totals in their rbi opportunity stat sheets.

actually, he would help. he'd be one less guy on second!

yeah, the comparison to the irregulars was unfair to an extent. but moreso to compare his actual performance to what our perception of the mets' own performance might be. then i went off track comparing the mets to other teams, cos i found it interesting. the denominator is plate appearances. per BP: ]R1 Runner on first. In the RBI opportunity report, refers to the number of times a batter came to the plate with a runner at first base. they do the same for R2 and R3 (runner on first, or runner on second) i'm guessing dunn does so poorly in this statistical regard because he takes a lot of walks. bp doesnt show that on their page, but his OBP is much higher with runners on than with the bases empty, per espn's split stats.

david wright was particularly, and uncharacteristically, awful this season with runners on second base. as you've seen in that left field thread, i've been looking at RBI opportunities lately. with runners on either first or third, david wright was one of the better hitters in the league. among players with 500+ PA on a given team, wright was 10th of 139 hitters in converting runners on first and 32nd of 139 hitters in converting runners on third. yet he was only 114th of those same 139 hitters in converting that runner on second, converting only 20 of 152 men on second base into runs batted in. and i'm going to guess that more often than not, that runner on second was jose reyes, right! in previous years: in 2007, he converted 146 runners on second into 29 rbi in 2006, he converted 148 runnes on second into a whopping 36 rbi and in 2005, he converted 129 runners on second into 24 rbi so what happened this year, i wonder? was he trying to do too much? i think perhaps the evidence supports that notion. with the bases empty this year, he had only 57 strikeouts in 312 at bats, netting 98 hits. with a runner on first (and maybe third, but not on second), he had only 29 strikeouts versus 55 hits, in 154 at bats. with a runner on third, (and maybe first, but not on second), he had only 13 strikeouts versus 20 hits, in 62 at bats. put a runner on second, and all of a sudden, he's got 23 strikeouts versus 26 hits, in 127 at bats. is he all of a sudden getting his baserunner to steal the catcher's signs, and its not working, or he used to do it and doesn't any more? or is he just pressing too much, and trying too hard to be a run producer instead of just a great hitter? i wonder... any thoughts?

as i was clicking away on baseball prospectus one day, i happened upon their statistics page, and clicked on RBI opportunities, or some such. in 2008, with arizona, adam dunn converted a runner on third into an RBI only 23.8% of the time; with cincinnati, dunn converted a runner on third into an RBI only 32.1% of the time. in total, with 77 runners on third base in 2008, adam dunn delivered 23 rbi, or 29.9% of the time. in 2007, with cincy, dunn delivered a 34.7% rate in 2006, dunn delivered a 25.8% rate in 2005, dunn delivered a 27% rate (disclaimer - the statements i'm about to post are somewhat flawed in that they are knowingly inaccurate. i'm using bp's data, but it doesnt combine seasons when a player splits time between two teams. so when i apply a cutoff of, say, 500 plate appearances, its really just those players who had 500+ plate appearances with one team, and not for the entire season. this shouldn't affect any relative comparisons made too badly) focusing on his 2008 season, adam dunn ranked at about 127th among 140 major leaguers with 500+ PA, in terms of driving in runners from third. interestingly enough, he ranks just behind pat burrell, who had a 30.0% conversion rate. for comparison, that's worse than any met regular. allow me to rattle off a few names here: easley 46.8% castillo 44.2% - wow! church 43.6% wright 41.7% reyes 41.5% delgado 41.2% schneider 40.5% tatis 40.5% beltran 37.8% chavez 20.0% - wow! the mets were actually pretty good at driving in runners from third base. if i look at those batters with more than 200 plate appearances (because its how i culled my data), the mets ranked 5th in the league, driving in that runner on third 40.34% of the time! only the twins, yankees, tigers, and white sox did better! among the playoff teams, the angels were 6th, boston 8th, cubs 10th, dodgers 19th, phillies 28th, and brewers 29th. so... as disappointing as it was this past week, perhaps driving in runners from third isn't this team's biggest offensive problem...? also, for some guys, these percentages seem to hold fairly steady. for some, there's a lot of fluctuation. i'm not sure how repeatable they are, or how well they correlate to other statistics, etc. is driving in runners from third a repeatable skill, i haven't a clue. is doing it well just a byproduct of being a contact hitter, or a fly ball hitter, or a violent hacker, i have no clue. but luis castillo was really good at it, and endy was really bad at it this year. and adam dunn doesn't seem to be terribly good at it, but he may just be letting the pitcher pitch around him - i haven't a clue.

seawolf17 wrote: Endy Chavez making that crazy circus catch in left field to save a run in the seventh inning. i thought the same thing at the time...

agreed. i loved the walking off the field together thing. i just wonder what they were talking about... i'm sure it was about how badly tom bounced the pitch, and some memories of games at shea, and the history of tehir shared franchise, but in my head, i could just imagine them saying "peas and carots. peas and carrots. peas and carrots? peas and carrots... peas and carrots... peas... and carrots."

i'm not quite ready to think about next year, until i've had some perspective set in. we have enough second basemen.

grumble, grumble...